A culture of modern data management has begun to take hold in the water management community. Leaders in state agencies across the country are beginning to recognize that better water data infrastructure helps them to be more effective and efficient in managing their water resources. The path to reach this goal, however, is still often unclear.
We envision the Oregon Water Data Portal (OWDP) as a single point of access on the Internet, where people can find data about Oregon’s water – from how much of it there is in certain regions, to how clean it is, how it is transported to communities, to how much is needed to support fish, wildlife, and habitat. It will have the types of data and information about water and infrastructure that can inform water resource decision-making in Oregon and will make it easier for the public and Oregon state agencies to find, integrate, and analyze data.
The Water Hub is a program of Climate Nexus that provides communications help to water advocates and experts, uplifts traditionally marginalized voices, and adds capacity to groups that have historically been under-resourced. In this blog, we interview Nicole Lampe, managing director of the Water Hub, about what she learned from their National Voter Poll on Water.
Monitor My Watershed is a water quality data sharing portal that enables users to continuously stream real-time in-situ sensor data and visualize that data through a web application. This free and open-source platform has powerful advantages for researchers, students, community scientists, and more.
In California, as in the rest of the country, FHABs are on the rise. In 2020, the California Water Board’s Freshwater and Estuarine Harmful Algal Bloom Program estimated that there were roughly 370 reports for FHABs in California. In 2021, that number doubled to roughly 600. As this year’s FHABs season comes to a close, we will likely see that number continue to rise. The key factors responsible for the rise are higher summer temperatures and more severe droughts brought on by climate change as well as increased nutrient levels due in part to run-off from farms and urban areas as well as discharges from wastewater treatment plants. In addition to implementing strategies to combat FHABs, the California State Water Resources Control Board (Water Board) has partnered with The Commons and the Nicholas Institute Water Policy Program to develop a robust FHAB monitoring and notification system to warn the public about and better track FHABs as they occur.